The Associated Press is reporting that a U.S. appeals court today revived the Xerox vs. Palm, 3com patent dispute over the Graffiti handwriting-recognition technology. The case first came to court in 1997 and has been tied up in the legal system ever since. The dispute is responsible for Palm ceasing use of the Graffiti input system and moving on to Graffiti 2.

G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

I would have been willing to pay for G1 on my Palm handheld. Palm should have settled or else licensed the darn thing. Of course, so much time has passed, now I'm mostly a Treo user--no input issues here. Just hope the courts get some sense on this issue.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

My ABSOLUTE dream Palm device would be (essentially) a TX with 4gb of flash onboard, a high capacity, removable battery and a cellular data radio (no voice)/BT/Wi-fi AND Graffiti 1.

Instead of candy-colored Zire cases and cradles of questionable quality/value, Palm should have licensed G1 and offered it as a ROCK-SOLID plugin to OS 5.x users. I'd have gladly paid $20 for it and even paid as much as $40 to regain that functionality.

G1 is still the most efficient (once you get used to it) stroke sequence for inputting data into a keyboard-less device. There are times on the Treo when I'd still rather bang out a few words via Graffiti vs. having to fumble with the keyboard (I have very fat thumbs).

One of the main reasons I switched to a Treo was to get around fussing with G2--the G1 hack is so unstable on the TX and TealScript is a bloated mess that doesn't provide seamless G1 functionality.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

Amen. I've come over to a Treo myself the last few years, but still would love to be able to use G-"one" with Grafitti Anywhere instead of Garbage2. Especially when I'm doing a *LOT* of writing - I find the keyboard about *half* as efficient as simple Grafitti "One."

Here seem to be our options because of this stupid lawsuit:1) buy a third-party semi-functional replica of G1, or 2) Hack over the patched G1 libraries to a G2 device, or3) screw up our handwriting even further by dyslexically mixing in the G2 strokes (which mix me up when I'm working with G1 machines).

Poetic justice on Xerox for pulling this #$%#! in the first place - I hope Palm eats their lunch if indeed Hawkins had prior art. It's just sick that the only way I can legitimately Graffiti "One" is by purchasing a Pocket PC or using a years-old Palm.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

Hawkins improved upon Xerox's idea to be sure and I'm not sure that I think that Xerox should have been given a patent for the Unistrokes concept, but based on quite a bit of online research I did years ago and posted in PDABuzz's forums (now lost), I could find no evidence of Hawkins' Graffiti pre-dating Xerox's Unistrokes.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

This is really little different from the Creative vs. Apple suits. We have a company (in this case Xerox) that can't remain viable or compete, so they sue whichever company seems a successful and vulnerable target to try to get a piece of the pie.

And we thought Palm was mismanaging things....

_________________Sean

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

That is, it doesn't matter if Graffiti was created after the Unistrokes patent was awarded. What matters is whether or not prior art exists that demonstrates that the concept was publically known before Xerox applied for the patent. If that's the case, then patent is invalid.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

I don't disagree. Joad stated that he hopes Hawkins "had" prior art, which implied that the prior art was work that Hawkins had done pre-Unistrokes. As others have suggested, I view Unistrokes much like shorthand. It was a great idea to take that concept and implement it on a PDA. While it may have been an original idea *to use it on a PDA*, I don't think it was an original idea *in general*. And I don't think Xerox should have been awarded a patent for it. That said, when you look at some of the really silly patents that have been filed over the last couple of years, Unistrokes looks like a worthwhile invention in comparison.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

I have difficulty with the "Unistrokes is essentially shorthand" argument. Shorthand is a collection of methods of replacing words or phrases with a single stroke. Unistroke is a single-stroke method of making a letter.

Does anyone outside of the court room know what Hawkins & Co. actually submitted as evidence of prior art to invalidate the Unistrokes patent?

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

"I have difficulty with the "Unistrokes is essentially shorthand" argument. Shorthand is a collection of methods of replacing words or phrases with a single stroke. Unistroke is a single-stroke method of making a letter."

True, but then what Xerox was attempting to do was essentially patenting either:a) A specific custom alphabet. If that's OK to patent, Hawkins & Co. wouldn't have been infringing on that because their specific alphabet (Graffiti) was quite different than the example alphabet provided in the Unistrokes patent application.or, b) Any and all single-stroke alphabets used in computer applications. I think that this is what they're arguing that they've got a patent to. But in that case, it could be argued that this patent is too broad and should not have been granted, because it would cover electronic systems which interpret cursive letters.

As I said before, I have a great deal of respect for the work that the Xerox folks did, I think that this was the right approach for the time (and even the best approach for today's non-thumbboard-based input methods), but I have trouble accepting it as a patentable idea. And while I have a feeling that Hawkins stole the idea from them and deserves some public disgrace for it, I also believe that he made real improvements to Xerox's concept. Great read here: http://www.yorku.ca/mack/GI97a.html

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

Given that Xerox has a history of coming up with great ideas and then sitting on them (the GUI, mouse, WYSIWYG editor, and laser printer come to mind), I'm not sure that "stealing" from Xerox is worthy of public disgrace.

RE: G1 is better than G2 -- Palm should have at least licensed it

This is really little different from the Creative vs. Apple suits. We have a company (in this case Xerox) that can't remain viable or compete, so they sue whichever company seems a successful and vulnerable target to try to get a piece of the pie.

Well, it's no wonder that companies like Palm and Apple are successful, given that they spend virtually nothing on their own research and instead create products by copying other people's ideas, cutting lots of corners, and rushing the result to market. The technical shortcomings of their products are then papered over with styling and marketing.

And you can see the consequences of that to this day: the problems Palm has had with the evolution of PalmOS are a direct consequence of that kind of business strategy.

I happen to think that Xerox is wrong in this case: their patent should be held invalid because there is plenty of prior art. Nevertheless, it also seems pretty clear that much of the Palm Pilot (including Graffiti, but also meany other features) were copied from Xerox and other companies, and Palm deserves little sympathy for their plight.

RE: Graffiti Died along with PDAs

Sad to say, Mike/Gekko/everyone else, right now (2005-6ish) is a rather distressing period of time...there are no honestly compelling PDAs on the market and I STILL consider smartphones to be in their infancy.

It's really about assigning one's own personal likes & dislikes & must-have features and seeing what particular device(s) entail the fewest number of compromises/trade-offs.

The passing of Graffiti without an official PEEP from Palm/PalmOne on the mattmer reeks of the company being completely indifferent towards retaining one of the hallmarks of the original "zen". To cripple the POS gestalt by removing the one form of stylus-based handwriting "reconition" that had caught on (sorry Newton fans) amongst average non-techie types was really the beginning of the end for Palm. Well, that and the Cobalt debacle and the m500 fiasco and Palm's horribly delayed adoption of multimedia...

Also worrying has been the utter lack of a sincere attempt from ANYONE (3rd party software companies like Dataviz, Handmark, TealPoint etc) to license the Unistroke libraries from Xerox and/or pay them royalties from a G1 plugin

So now it's either get your HVGA & wi-fi on a TX but be saddled with missing features & G2 or sign your soul away to the carriers for a Treo that's more sluggish & less capable as a PDA than the 3-year old T3. Sigh...

RE: Graffiti Died along with PDAs

RE: Graffiti Died along with PDAs

---Quote---Lastly, it should be noted that because pulling alternately on one chain and then the other resembles in some measure the movements one would use to swing from vines in a dense jungle forest, the swinging method of the present invention may be referred to by the present inventor and his sister as "Tarzan" swinging. The user may even choose to produce a Tarzan-type yell while swinging in the manner described, which more accurately replicates swinging on vines in a dense jungle forest. Actual jungle forestry is not required.-------

Top 10 reasons to use separate PDA + cellphone (avoid smartphone)

>>>There's no reason to buy/manage/charge/carry/sync/fight/fumble with 2+ devices when ONE Smartphone can do it all.

Reasons? Perhaps not. But there are plenty of preferences and opinions that validate not owning an all-in-one item.

Top 10 reasons to use separate PDA and cellphone instead of an all-in-one smartphone:

1) Screen size. Separate PDAs typically have bigger, better screens than smartphones. Smartphones with bigger screens tend to be huge, dorky-looking bricks that are too large to carry everywhere. The screen size advantage conferred by having a separate PDA makes it easier to deal with for anything other than the most basic PIM tasks. Reading large amounts of email, reading ebooks, surfing the Internet, watching videos, balancing checkbooks, viewing photos, remote desktop access, etc are a pain in the a$$ to do on most smartphones.

2) Redundancy. Lose your smartphone and you lose access to a lot of information. Lose just a cellphone or just a PDA and you still have the other, likely with your contacts + schedule, etc.

3) Ease of upgrading. With seperates it's easy to upgrade more frequently to obtain any hot new PDA or cellphone features.

4) Looks. Most smartphones (besides the Samsung i500) are too geeky-looking to be used in public without experiencing severe embarassment + shame. (And will the Treo lineup EVER lose its external antenna?)

5) Flexibility. On occasions where the minimum size/weight of equipment is needed, with separates the PDA can be left at home.

6) Selection. With separates, users have the choice of literally hundreds of standalone cellphones and dozens of PDAs and can decide on the perfect combination to meet needs/style preferences. With smartphones, users are limited to whatever gruel is being served up in their local cellphone carrier's Stalag.

7) Phone performance. The cellphone component of most smartphones is woefully inadequate. Unintelligible sound quality, poor reception, absense of profiles, feeble battery life, crappy speakerphone, missing high speed data, useless camera, frequent crashes and a number of other nightmares are common on smartphones and are uncceptable to individuals who rely on their cellphones as an essential business tool. This is one of the reason why many individuals with Treos ironically also carry traditional, trustworthy cellphones. Doesn't having to carry TWO phones more or less defeat the whole point of carrying a smartphone?

9) Expense. Break your featurephone and you can replace it for just a few pesos. Break your smartphone and your wallet will be singing the blues. Plus you're stuck with having neither phone nor PDA while you wait to get it replaced.

10) Games. While standalone PDAs can make good gaming systems, smartphones just don't cut it for those interested in mobile gaming. Small screen + small buttons = small fun on smartphones.

Bottom line: smartphones are - by definition - a compromise trading features and ease of use for the debatable "advantage" of carrying a single device. When properly executed (Samsung i500) the smartphone compromises are potentially acceptable to those of us who demand more of our equipment. When poorly executed or sloppily constructed (Treo 600) the smartphone compromise is an exercise in frustration.

RE: Graffiti Died along with PDAs

And after the fact, of course, I was an easy target for the liar ("SeldomVisitor had a lot of login IDs here!" - paraphrase) who banned me and a cast of thousands spread throughout the discussion boards.

MicroPCs + powerful featurephones = the REAL future

the mass market wants smartphones, not pdas. check the sales data. the trend is clear. pdas are dead.

That was a self-fulfilling prophesy. Repeat it enough times and it just might come true.

Ultimately, the compromise between screen size and device size/weight will limit the popularity of true smartphones. Even the most cleverly-designed smartphones will have screens that are too small to comfortably us as PDAs, while smartphones are too large to carry everywhere.

I (and the bigger brains at Palm) envision a future much more different than the simplistic "Treo in every pot" world you naively appear to believe in.

1) Size matters™. The mass market will NOT accept big, heavy smartphones. For flipphones, the Samsung i500 is the ideal form factor (minus the external antenna), while a light version of Pat Horne's infamous Treo 800g would be the ideal design for a candybar phone form factor.

2) Most users actually don't need their phones to be very smart. If a phone ships with a proprietary, intuitive suite of apps covering basics like email, SMS, web browser, video playback, MP3 playback, Word documents, PDF viewer, photos, calendar, contacts and memos it will fulfill the needs of most consumers. The average Joanne will not want to have to hunt around finding apps to load onto their phone to make it more useful. With just a little more work on the power + integration of apps on featurephones they will be just as good as true smartphones in the eyes of the average consumer. This is the dirty little secret that the makers of PalmOS and Windows Mobile don't want people to know.

3) Laptops running REAL WINDOWS and REAL WINDOWS APPLICATIONS are exponentially more useful to consumers than any smartphone. Laptops will soon be available running REAL WINDOWS and REAL WINDOWS APPLICATIONS in form factors not much bigger than traditional PDAs like the Zodiac 2, VZ90, TH55. Once these become less expensive, consumers will finally have the ideal situation: tiny, full-featured "featurephones" providing the essentials and tiny micro PCs running REAL WINDOWS and REAL WINDOWS APPLICATIONS. The new Sony Vaio UX50 (no irony with the name...) hints at what will be coming in 2006-07:

4) Palm will attempt to get a piece of the low end of the market with a PalmTop™ Internet/Wi-Fi/entertainment tablet. This strategy has 2 fatal flaws: 1) it's 2 years too late and 2) it doesn't run the only OS that matters - REAL WINDOWS.

Palm realized far too late that the PalmOS library is actually of little value to most consumers. Nokia is about to take maemo to the next level and is big enough to turn it into a dominant "pseudo-smartphone" OS. Once Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson start firing their big guns later this year, Palm won't know what hit them. And bumping RAM up to a 512 MB NAND flash chip in 2007 to create a "Treo 750" won't cut it. Palm is fcuked unless it can sucker a company like Motorola into buying them out.

His politics stink but the on-topic stuff he writes is good stuff! (giggle)

I left Treocentral a LONG time ago as soon as it became obvious that the "moderators" there were almost all hypocritical dumba$$ kiddies on a powertrip. Remember their schizophrenic stand over the posting of hacked Treo files, unlocking the Treo, etc.?

Most of the wittier posters (like purpleX and her cousins) and those of us involved in hacking the Treo either left in disgust or were banned. Your own banning was especially ridiculous, hengeem.

I know some VERY BAD PEOPLE who were going to take down the Treocentral site a while back, but later decided to relent. In retrospect, maybe it's now time for those VERY BAD PEOPLE to "unleash Hell", Gladiator-style. If it happens, I WON'T be holding them back this time...

Treocentral alread pointless

PalmStation imploded.PDABuzz implodedBrighthand is an embarassment that should be put out of its misery.ClieSource was sacrificed so that 1src might live, only to see that site parasitized and slowly killed off by presence of the likes of Jeff Kirvin/Dr Opinion, dumba$$ moderators and the dozen or so kiddies that hung on Kirvin's every word like it was manna from heaven.

I know a number of people that are planning for a Doomsday scenario by downloading versions of EVERY possible app they think they might ever need in the future along with the corresponding cracks/patches/keygens.

Micheal Mace (PalmSources former Chief Competitive Officer) as an interesting discussion going on his blog site about how developers are seeing sales nosedive:

RE: Graffiti Died along with PDAs

PalmAddicts has a lot of fluff but at least you can be assured of some decent content & interesting tidbits amidst the fluff & flotsam 'n jetsam & kitten pictures.

PIC is where the long-time users & Palm OS affecionados will make their last stand! I am doing my part to contribute plenty of hardware & software reviews and Ryan has some interesting stuff in the works. Anyone else who feels compelled to provide some fresh content to PIC please go ahead and contribute.

I don't want to speak for Ryan personally but I do know what two things we have discussed is THE definitive database of EVERY Palm OS model produced since the Pilot 1000. A picture or two, date of introduction, any relevant manufacturer or info links and a listing of the basic features of each unit would be handy. That way when users stumble across a hidden gem like a Samsung i550, a Qool smartphone or a Black Tie Treo 650 (heh) they will know how these rarities stack up against the better known Palm & Sony offerings. This might end up being a massive undertaking but it'd make for a great addition to the site.

Sometime else I am slowly but surely plugging away at is a comprehensive roundup of Palm OS entertainment titles vs. the same title;s port on another portable platform (WinMob, Gameboy, PSP, cell phone BREW app etc). The POS versions are often surprisingly decent.

Here are MY three reasons why software sales are down on mobile platforms:

#1. "Smartphones" have TOO little dammmed memory. Execs who drop $600+ on an unlocked or full retail Treo without batting an eye WILL balk at spending $50 on an SD card. Or they will worry that the card will get lost. Or it's too hard to use/manage etc. Or they may worry that people will think a removable flash card is a security risk. At any rate, 99% of the PDAs & smartphones I encounter in daily use are filled with either MP3s & jpegs alone on their 128mb SD cards or their SD slots are completely empty while everything is stuffed into main RAM. Palm's penny pinching on the Treos (~23mb free on the Treo 650 and ~60mb on the 700P) ensures that people can only load the 'essentials' on their devices. Even more apalling is the lack of a solid ROM updater utility from Dataviz/Normsoft etc to let pepole update their ROM apps to the latest versions or to the deluxse/premium versions without sacrificing valuable RAM space.

#2. It's still too hard to install applications, especially from within Blazer. The new PalmSource intaller kit is nifty but results have been rather mixed from my limited experience with it.

#3 (the biggie). Migrating from one Palm device to another is a HUGE nightmare. Going from a TX to the 700P I had to dig up ancient reg code e-mails, reregister several apps, deal with lots of lost prefs & saved games, stuff that was broken by the 700P's version of FrankenGarnet etc etc etc. Most users would simply give up in frustration rather than spent a solid weekend installing, testing and tweaking five years' worth of old applications & games. The final insult was having to resize all of my jpegs & MPEG video clips to 320*320 from the HVGA on the TX. If something like this isn't a deal breaker I don't know what is.

#4 In order for a true breakthrough to occur in mobile computing, SD capacities need to hit 4gb + with WIDESPREAD compatability. I am sitting here with a 2gb Ultra II SD card and a brand new USB card reader in the PC that won't read it...and no USB cable on my Treo for Card Export. Sigh...Hopefully SDHC will take off pretty quickly and we'll start seeing a slew of SD enabled devices that can handle 4gb cards. Then all we'll have to wait for are 8gb cards to appear and people will finally be able to carry ALL of their media in their non-iPod devices.

#5. Palm's newfound emphsis on giving users a really solid bundle of bundled applications (TX, LD, Treo 700P) is a double edged sword. As much as PTunes, DTG & Palm's Photos app have improved, that's a couple more sales lost. Developers like SplashData & Red Mercury will be really feeling the squeeze as they are not even getting the revenue from Palm bundling "lite" versions of their apps (unlike like Dataviz & Normsoft).

The Mother of all PalmOS Device Lists

Actually, here's a better idea: Ryan can post the outline as a separate article and readers can contribute descriptions using a similar format. Photos could be emailed to Ryan once he indicates what size he wants them to be.

We could probably finalize the list within a week and Ryan could then edit it down to a polished database.

I'm not sure offhand how many styles Sony employed over the lifespan of the Clie (3?) and Handspring had different connectors for the original Visor line plus the Treo 600 style and the Visor Edge IIRC.

Symbol & HandEra/TRG devices all used Palm III style connectors.Garmin uses UC and mini-USB. Tapwave had a proprietary connector for the Zodiacs.

RE: TreoCentral already pointless

RE: Graffiti Died along with PDAs

Can someone post a *very* condensed version of what's gone down lately with TC and the ban-fest?

I think I've posted there once and not spent too terribly much time lurking so I'm sorta out of the loop...having been extremely turned off by the events of "silly season". In addition, I never see answers given there to the handful of Treo 700P questions/issues that are vexing me.

T3 the Newton of Palms

When I lost my original T3, I bought another. If anything happened to it today, I'd hunt down yet another T3.

Sure, I'd like some of the features of the newer Palms. However, there are too many critical things missing in them that were present up to the T3 (such as G1, at least via a reliable hack) that I can't make the jump.

I have a feeling that the T3 is destined to be come the "Newton" of Palms, with people like me stubbornly holding onto them until such a day that Palm gets its head out of its posterior.

There's nothing wrong with my T3, but I'd replace/upgrade it in a heartbeat if Palm came out with a worthy successor that wasn't 2 steps forward, 5 steps backwards. There are lots of people like myself. However, Palm abandoned that market after the T3. There is no more flagship, high-end Palm for people who want no compromises. The TX is listed on Palm's site for $299. So come out with the successor for the T3, price it at $399, and include the following:

RE: T3 the Newton of Palms

Palm should send POS out with a bang and release JUST such a device. Give it the generous heap size of the Treo 700P and maybe a couple hundred mb of internal flash storage for good measure ala T5.

Don't forget BT in addition to the wi-fi as well as CDMA phone DUN compatability over BT.

If such a device ever materialized I'd drop the Treo in a heartbeat for it.

ALL of the functions you and I mention have been or are currently incldued on various Palms. It's just a matter of getting them all onto the same device with no major OS quirks or build quality woes. If $ becomes an issue then omit the cradle!

RE: T3 the Newton of Palms

Yeah, I didn't meant to imply no more Bluetooth. I was simply listing the features not already present in the T3 that should be added to its successor.

I finally got so frustrated that I wrote a real paper letter today that I'm mailing to Palm corporate HQ. Maybe it will be ignored, who knows, but it's worth the few cents. I urge anyone else who would like a successor to the T3 to do the same:

RE: T3 the Newton of Palms

RE: T3 the Newton of Palms

Amen ! I 've been praying for a PDA with the same specs for years now (maybe add an PalmOS upgrade to the list). Is it so difficult for Palm to understand ? TT5 and TX were missed opportunities. My Treo 650 is useless as a PDA since G2 sucks big and Igor's G1 hack doesn't work (e.g. punctuation).I really miss pda computing. I cannot carry my ultra small 12" laptop with me all the time and I hate all these WindozeCE gadgets. Thank God I kept my TT3, I am thinking of start using it again instead of struggling with Treo's thumboard.

RE: T3 the Newton of Palms

Joad;I have to admit, that after getting so frustrated with the unstable G1 hack on T5/TX, I don't mind my 700P's thumbboard all THAT much. My keypad does seem to have splotchy LED backlighting under some of the keys, unfortunately.

My bone(s) to pick with the Treo are almost all on the phone side of the device. I had gotten so used to my Moto V10/V3c call handling that nothing is intuitive on the Palm (impossible to dial w/o looking, I fumble around when trying to dial from contacts, and the speakerphone laves much to be desired). Phone reception is also mysteriously good in areas where the Razr was not but the Treo also has amazingly bad reception in areas where the RAZR shines.

PDA-wise, the 700P's a solid unit and fairly stable. I miss the "today" screen that recent Palm PDAs have had and I cannot fathom why Palm left out the Expense & Notepad apps. Otherwise, a high-capacity removable battery, vibrating alert, charging LED and voice recorder are all niceties that have been AWOL or never present on Palm's PDA lineup.

After spending time (a week) with the Treo I've decided that the holy grail of PDA computing would be a tablet device--approximately TX sized is fine--with the best of both worlds: (three is ideal but I could handle just two if FrankenGarnet isn't up to the task) Cellular data radio (no voice, please), BT, wi-fi. Plenty of RAM, an internal flash drive, a Treo-sized removable battery, and a decent HVGA screen. I could even live with the LifeDrive's size if it omitted the HD in favor of flash memory and shoehorned a removable battery & cellular radio in there.

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